1894.] 



NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA. 



99 



Neither Dr. Leidy nor INIr. Paret has asserted that the human 

 remains of this second known cave of importance in the Delaware 

 Valley were those of Indians or any other people definitely named, 

 or that the bones, often rodent- gnawed, and the scanty human refuse 

 belong to one and the same period of occupancy, so it seemed worth 

 while tor the sake of the buried human story of the Delaware Valley 

 to go back to the cave in October 1893, and study what might be 

 left of the original layei'S to determine if possible : 



(a) Whether the animal and human remains were contemporane- 

 ous. 



(b) Whether the human remains were Indian remains. 



(c) Whether the human remains were of geologically ancient or 

 modern date. 



Present Condition of the Cave. — INIr. Paret showed me the 

 cave on the hill top October 17, 1893. Nearly all the 

 upper stratification had been shovelled out until one could 

 walk in under the broad, chilly arch for 117 feet, 6 inches. 

 But as the unfathomed clay remained underfoot from end to end 

 and fringes of the original debris lay along the right and left 

 walls just inside the entrance, and as the talus heap outside had only 

 been trenched through the middle to clear an ingress and so showed 



Fig. 2. 



its original stratification when its edges were pared down (Fig. 2, c. 

 a. e.), there seemed some chance of recovering the lost threads of 

 the story. 



The Contemporaneity of Human and Animal Remains. — 

 Two men shovelling five days in the inner clay and slicing the 



